STOP THE BLUE LIVES MATTER LAW!!

In today from Enchanta Jackson of ColorofChange.org. This is very important to sign on to this petition.

A week ago, I was chained to the door of the Fraternal Order of Police for 13 hours with Movement for Black Lives activist in unison with protesters across the country to expose the FOP for who they are: the most dangerous fraternities in America.1The Fraternal Order of Police is one of the driving forces behind the cynical and divisive legislation known as “Blue Lives Matter” -a bill threatening the movement to hold police accountable.

From its name to the legislative details, Blue Lives Matter laws are intended to antagonize and discredit efforts for racial justice and police accountability by dividing the American people with a fallacious choice between protecting Black lives or police officers.

There are state and federal legislative push for Blue Lives Matter bills. The federal is called the Back the Blue Act and has the backing of GOP leadership, but both federal and state laws are fundamentally the same. They group the occupation of the police officer with historically oppressed identity groups in order to classify any harm inflicted onto police officers as a hate crime.2 Here’s the problem: being a police officer is an occupation, not an identity.3 This is a slap in the face to the decades of fighting advocates have done to procure hate crime protections for marginalized groups, and as we’ve seen in recent protests, police are known to embellish their claims of confrontation with Black folks.

Activists have already faced constant backlash from law enforcement –government surveillance, excessive jail time, tear gassing, and being physically beaten by police. In the hands of local law enforcement, these new laws could mean more trumped up charges and longer sentences for protesters.

The FOP spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote its dangerous agenda. This is why on Wednesday activists in DC, Oakland, New York, and Chicago blockaded the entrances to police union offices –including the FOP’s national legislative office that I was chained to on Capitol Hill, to halt their legislative agenda for the day. We succeeded and held them off for a day, but it will take all of us to stop them for good. Will you stand with us?